When we do the roof systems, you’ve got to remember it’s a monolithic roof system, which means there are no seams. There is nowhere that water can penetrate. Unlike your typical systems when you spray the foam on top of the cap sheet, all of those lines you see, those are the seams underneath the roof. Right, I see. So when you do hot tar, basically you’ve got seams everywhere. Whereas, when you do spray foam, there’s coating. There’s no seams anywhere.

Correct.

What’s the lifespan of something like this?

20 years.

Is there kind of a warranty on that?

Yeah. It’s a 10 year manufacturer’s warranty and 10 year labor warranty. If you want to have a spec job, and you have to pay for this. The manufacturer will spec the job. You’ve got to use a certain use a certain thickness of foam, you’ve got to use certain types. They’ve got several different types of coating. You can purchase extended warranties by the manufacturer where the manufacturer will stand behind it for let’s say 15 years or 20 years, or 25 years.

So the standard is 10 years but you can get it extended to 15 to 20 years.

Correct.

See those air conditioning units Tim? On this particular building, we didn’t have to do anything to the AC in this, because there were on curbs. Now what’s very typical on older buildings, they didn’t build curbs for the AC and it’s a stand on. All they have is they…

So when you say curbs, you mean like this platform that it’s on.

Exactly. Right there. They have curbs already, so it’s done correctly. On older buildings, they’ll have a steel frame that’s set on top of the roof system. And the AC unit will stand on. That’s a poor application. It ends up wearing up the roof system after a while, because of the vibration of the AC unit. And if it has those steel frames, what we’ll do is we’ll build curbs for the AC units to stand and we put a sheet metal cap on top of it to make it water tight. We lift the unit a couple inches using jacks. Sometimes we have to use a crane. But we’ll lift it up, we’ll slide the new curb, and the sheet metal pan underneath the AC unit, and then we’ll foam around it. When it comes to the air conditioning work, the duct work that enter the building, we’ll coat that as well. See the big white box that’s bolted next to the… right there! That’s the duct work that enters into the building.

Right.

We will seal that against the AC unit and we’ll also coat it. So that the cool air that is…

Oh, I see! So what you’re saying then is because there’s duct work, you’re going to actually seal and coat that with spray foam as well.

Right.

Which will improve the efficiency of the cooling system.

Exactly. So the cool air isn’t going out the seams and it’s not being heated by the sun, because it’s just sheet metal. We’ll add like half an inch of foam and do two coats of coating on top of there just to make sure the duct work is insulated. So the cool air stays cool going into the building. So that will help them save. And we did that on every building or residential house.

So you’ve mentioned residential a couple of times in terms of flat roofs. How often do you end up with a flat roof with an AC unit on a residential building? Sounds unusual to me.

No, no! It’s very common. I think because you live in Utah with the snow that you get, you probably don’t see as much. In Arizona it’s very common.

Well I know one of these…

Escondido new custom home.

That’s on the inside.

We did insulation on that as well.

On the outside. Oh there we go. So that’s the outside. You did the inside like we just looked at but also, you did this, which is putting spray foam on the surface of the roof itself.

Correct.

And that was in Arizona?

No, no. That one’s in Escondido. That’s in California.

Alright. So it’s not unusual for flat roofs like this.

No.

So what they’re doing is putting… this is spray foam that we can see here going on the surface.

Correct.

And did you apply this surface here? Is this a new construction?

Yes. It was new construction. And now spray foam only has a C fire rating. We have to add a fire barrier to the foam. So what we do is we screwed down a quarter inches of DensDeck

And that’s what these squares are here?

Yup. And we screwed that down with plates. So the screw head just don’t pop out, we have like three inch plates.

That’s these things.

Yup. And you screw that down on top of the plywood. And then you spray foam right on top. Now you have your fire rated roof system.

So what is DenDeck?

It’s a fire rated board. Fiberglass board.

Ah, ok. You applied all of this DensDeck fire rating, fire resistance, and then you applied spray foam over the top of it to seal it.

Yup.

Applied how much? What dense did you do on this one?

That was one inch.

And you would coat that as well?

Correct. Two layers of Elastomeric roof coating.

Again, it’s reflective and it helps seal and make the whole thing water proof.

Yes.

Everything that we’ve looked at so far has been closed cell.

Yes.

Do you ever use open cell on a commercial building?

For insulation? Yes.

So why would you use open cell on a commercial building? What circumstance?

It’s a lot cheaper and if they’re just looking for thermal and an air seal, they can save a lot of money by doing that. And as I remember, open cell is open for sound. In San Diego, we did a gym. It was aa work out gym and they wanted on their cardio area where they had loud music. And they didn’t want the people working out with the weights be disturbed by all the loud music going on, so they had me do the wall in between that with open cell foam because they wanted a good sound barrier.

So how did you do it then?

We did it eight inches thick.

Oh wow!

Yeah.

Presumably, when you’re going for the maximum sound insulation, you’re going to fill the cavity presumably, are you?

Yeah. Let’s say if it’s framed with two by tens, we usually take it out to the end. Get as much in there as you can.

So that’s the other component of commercial projects then is if sound is the main issue or the priority, then you might use open cell and fill the cavity to get the maximum sound insulation.

Correct.

It’s just not immediately obvious, I think, that a gym is necessarily something where sound becomes an issue, but that’s a good example of it I think.

Yup.

I imagine there’s going to be a lot if you got an office block near an airport or something like that. That might become a priority.

Yeah.

Or anywhere where there’s a lot of background noise and you want to insulate it.

Shared Vision of Success: Key to Preventing Divorce

Read the transcript of the video:

Alright. Number four. Not having a shared vision of success. What does that mean?

So how often have you heard someone say, “Everything changed after we got married”? And I think what we jokingly most typically hear is “She gained wait”, “She cut her hair”. And then from the female perspective is, “He works long hours” and “He doesn’t court me anymore. All the nice things he used to do when we were dating – he’d buy me flowers, he’d leave me sticky notes – he doesn’t do any of that anymore. He got what he wanted.” But that’s not what this is referencing, but it’s kind of along the same lines of something that you need to be aware of. That everything changed when we got married because he drives you crazy because you’re a saver and he’s a spender. Or if your idea of a getaway is a cozy cottage in the woods and he wants to hit the town and catch a game. Or he thinks your job is to cook and clean but you disagree. These are all things that you should be discussing prior to getting married, so that you have a shared vision moving forward. And then I think the flip side of that is it’s good to have diverse interests and to be willing to participate in those interests that your spouse has. So it might not be something that your favorite thing in the world. But don’t just poo-poo it because it’s not. Be willing to engage in it because there’s probably going to be something you would like him or her to engage in that’s yours, and that’s not something they’re really interested in.

That makes a lot of sense, but then again I just can’t help but think that people do changed. So that’s not how she used to be before, that’s not how he used to be before we got married. Well, you know what, it’s not 20 years earlier anymore. Hey there, times have changed. You think to be flexible enough to know how to grow with your spouse as things change.

I think that’s true, but I’ve also heard couples who’ve only been married a year who make these comments.

Restaurants need to manage their finances more tightly than any other business. This is why owners of this kind of business should hire an accountant that specializes on restaurants. This video talks about the challenges that restaurant owners face.

Challenges that Restaurant Owners Face in an Accounting Perspective

Read the transcript of the video:

What we’ll focused on today then is the challenges that restaurant owners have from an accountancy point of view.
I’ll just take a new client that we started working with eight months ago that has a restaurant that’s called the Flame Broiler. They have a franchise operation and they serve chicken and rice bowls and things like that. They came to us about eight months ago and he had partnered with his brother. Decided to buy a franchise. Took him about eight months to do the build out at the location. He recordkeeping was pretty poor in the beginning. They did not have an accounting system setup. So they’re spending all this money on lease hold improvements and architects. And spending money on credit cards instead of…
The first challenge that they run into was just tracking all this. When it came time to actually set up the bookkeeping and do the tax returns, had to track the stuff down and it was fairly difficult for him to do that as he did not have a good accounting system in place when he started. That was one thing. So eventually just used an Excel spreadsheet to track the income and expenses. It wasn’t really the proper way to do in terms of double entry accounting and keeping the books in order to do a tax return. What we had to do with him was do a cleanup project. So we took the last 18 months of data from him of all his transactions, historical bank statements, credit cards, and basically just recreated the books for his last year and a half. So that was kind of our first step. We did all that so we could essentially do the tax return for him. And then going forward we were doing monthly bookkeeping with him.
So he was using Spreadsheets. What did you move into from that?
We moved into QuickBooks Online. That was the accounting solution.
But did that mean that he had to become familiar with QuickBooks Online?
He doesn’t. He just uses it to lookup the financial reports. You know, he looks at his profit-loss balance sheet. General ledger. So he kind of just uses it only for financial reporting. We use it more for the internal accounting in terms of the bank recs and things like that. Still uses Excel Spreadsheets for some of its own internal tracking but now we have a good kind of financial system in place, and so we can really understand if he’s making money or not.
How does he provide the data to you, so that you can put it into QuickBooks?
There’s kind of three components to that. So there’s the bank transactions. Most of our clients we have them setup a view only access account to account for us with this bank, so we can pull the bank statements, view the transactions, and also view his credit card activities. So that’s how we get the information initially. And then the bookkeepers will input that and reconcile that in QuickBooks. And then typically we will use historical transactions in terms of our coding. So there’s something, a new vendor that pops up and our bookkeeper aren’t familiar with that vendor is. We’ll send them an email asking them for clarification as to what type of expenses it’s for.
Is he using a separate card for business? So therefore you know everything that goes on in that card is business?
Yeah. That’s what he does. And that’s one of our best practice that we get clients to do, so we can ascertain that everything on his card is business unless he tells otherwise. That’s the kind of the first step of the process.
Right.
The other things that he provides to us he has payroll, so he provides payroll reports to us, sets up online access. I believe he has ADP. So we have an accountant access we can look at, so we can just pull those reports and put the information in to the QuickBooks, because the proper breakdown of the payroll expenses. And then the third component is the point of sales system, so he uses a POS system. And that produces weekly and monthly reports. So then we can do a journal entry in QuickBooks to make sure everything’s broken out correctly. Showing that we have gross sales, we have refunds. Showing up in the right place. Do we have sales tax being reported correctly? So that’s kind of what the POS reports supplies us with. And then it also helps kind of reconcile things out in terms of cash deposits, credit card deposits right. Because all this money coming into his account but the POS reports is actually a tool that we can use to actually reconcile his account again. That’s another reason to have that. And that’s one of the things that’s unique about restaurants is majority of them will have some sort of point of sales systems, and so we’ll typically need reports from that, in order to complete the accounting. One of the challenges that a lot of restaurants have when they’re setting those reports up correctly. And usually they’ll need help from the vendor to make sure that everything’s set up correctly. Because when they do it themselves, it might not be setup the right way. Things might not go into the right categories. Usually there’s some learning for them on that. We typically work with our clients just to make sure it is providing us with the data we need. And if it isn’t then we’ll let them know that they need to go back to their render and get it set up properly.
So how would you characterize that particular engagement?
Really for him, it’s more of some kind of a basic level of accounting, some kind of monthly write up service. Providing monthly financial statements for him.
But the sense I get is that his QuickBooks activity in his case is completely outsourcing to you. He’s not doing any work on QuickBooks other than just looking at the data. Did I understand that correct?
Right. That’s correct.
So it’s fully outsourced in the sense that he’s not having to do any work on QuickBooks. Is that… Am I understanding it?
Yeah.
Is that the most common way that people do it? Do most restaurants usually have their own person handling QuickBooks? Or would most of them tend to outsource it?
It’s really a mix,
Do you have an opinion of what tends to work best?
It can make sense if they manage it internally if someone’s really dedicated to that task and they have the time. Probably a part time, 20-hour a week job. For someone who’s really in a restaurant to really take on that full responsibility in the accounting department, they need to be a numbers type of person or inclined to that. Otherwise, they create a mess for themselves.
Can you tell us more about that particular kind? Flame Broiler.
It’s a quick serve restaurant. People go in there and spend eight or ten bucks on a meal. Lunch and dinner is mainly what they focus on. They’re on Pacific Beach, so they’re right on kind of a main street through town. A lot of their businesses from locals, but they do get some vacation traffic as well. The locals are their bread and butter. It tends to be a little bit healthier to sell to people that are local who want to have a healthy choice they can come back to on a consistent basis.
Without giving anything confidential away, can you ballpark what revenue level they’re at?
Let’s say a million and under.
So it is possible to run a restaurant and make a profit then, is it?
Is it possible? It is possible! A lot of them don’t though. The people that I see that make it work are people that are typically experienced in the business, have a really good sense of the numbers. Because a lot of it’s testing too, right? Because a lot of restaurant people aren’t necessary numbers people. They’re food people. So they like to cook and everything like that. They’re like the people aspect, but they’re not necessarily business people. And sometimes that gets them into trouble. Not really watching the numbers the way they should be. Or being overly optimistic or be emotionally attached to the idea.
I mention it because restaurants by nature are notoriously a run for a few months and fail within the first year fairly consistently. It’s only some restaurants that seem to be able to go from strength to strength. Yeah?
Yeah. That’s true. It’s one of those businesses where have to manage it well. You have to manage every dollar. Costs are really important in that type of business.
Yeah.

McNamee Mediations is an example of a successful small business in California. They are experts at divorce mediation. In the video below, Colleen talks about one of the causes of divorce, which is when couples get lost in their roles of marriage.

Getting Lost the Roles in Marriage

Below is the transcript of the video:

So number three: becoming lost in the roles.

Becoming lost in the roles can potentially be a three stage progression. So stage one would be when you first get married. Couples have a tendency to stop spending as much time, or spending less and less time with their single friends. Whether it’s because, you know, you can’t really relate to them, because they’re out bar hopping, and that’s not what you’re doing anymore and it’s not conducive to your lifestyle or your marriage. Or you just spend a lot of time together. Or you spend a lot of time with only other married couples. So that’s stage one in becoming lost in the roles. And stage two is when children come, and then you spend less and less time as a couple. So here, you’ve pulled away from all of your single friends that have been a part of your life when you first get married. Now you’ve had children, and your focus is on your children. Obviously, when they’re young, they’re completely dependent on you and they need your undivided attention. But you have to be careful that you’re not forgetting about your spouse, and that does typically happen. And it’s easy to have that happen, because it’s start with a baby, and the baby needs you and is totally dependent, as you know.

Women, I think she’s talking to you right now.

Hey, hey hey!

But you’re right. I have a six month old at home, and it absolutely gets difficult. What’s the third stage?

Yes. So this is kind of the end of becoming lost in the roles. So you first get married, then you have children, and you kind of slowly but surely growing further and further apart as the initial couple that you were when you first exchanged your vows. Then the third stage is after children. And I see this a lot with the older couples that I’ve worked with to facilitate their divorce process. Many husbands and wives at this stage have grown so far apart over the years that once the children are out of the house, and it’s back to being just the two of them, there’s no connection any more. And they can’t even remember why they got married in the first place, because there’s been such a huge gap that’s been created. And this goes back to number one, the lack of individual identity. It’s so important that you balance your own individual identity with being a couple. And having common interests as well as individual interests, because if you don’t, once the kids are out of the house, you don’t have any shared interests anymore, and what’s going to reground you?

Yeah. I think you’re absolutely right on that. I know when my dad retired, and was at the house all day long, all of a sudden for the first time in my life I saw my mom and dad bicker, like crazy they were bickering.

It should be like a newly sung life. You should be falling in love all over again at this stage.

So we talked about wine tanks, pole barns, horse barns, and I think you were going to talk about a marine application?
Yeah. Long Beach is the biggest port in the United States, and we’ve done several boat hauls, the bottom of the boat. We
used marine foam that can handle oil, saltwater. Fiberglass boats that helps for floatation. If there’s any cracks or
holes in the boat, it could keep it afloat. A lot of fresh water racing boats use it to work if there is a rack, if they
come apart while they’re racing, the boat stays afloat instead of sinking to the bottom. They use it as a safety
precaution to keep the boat afloat if there is any issues when taken into the water, the boat will still float.
So is it something that would be applied during manufacturing or can it be retrofitted.
Both. There is constant problems of boat hauls leaking. Remember it has a moisture barrier in there. So we can go in there
in older boats to spray foam. It actually toughens it. Remember it builds structural integrity, so it can do that to a
boat haul as well. It makes it a lot more sturdy. You spray it in between the springers of the boat just like you would
the framing of a house. It would help keep the boat water tight, add a floatation device to it. On boats, a lot of times
oil from the engine ends up in the bottom of the haul. Anything that strips down from the boat ends up in the haul, and
usually the builds picks it up and takes it out. So it would catch the builds and it would not soak in the insulation
curves because it’s water-resistant.
I imagine it would be a challenge to actually apply because you’re going to be in extremely kind of restricted spaces?
Well there’s plenty of boat yards that you can go to the boat yard instead of doing it out on the water. That’s when it
can be initiated.
Getting inside the haul?
It’s a tight fit.
Do you have a really short guy?
A really short guy? No.
Or do you just make a policy of employing small children?
Well there’s awfully big boats too out here. I’m talking military ships as well.
Oh right!
Yeah there’s more than just a little pleasure boats.
So it doesn’t…
You can get some monstrous boats. We’re talking cruise liners, military ships, fishing boats, sixty, seventy foot long
fishing boats.
Are there any restrictions in terms of the type of boats or basically what you’re saying it applies to virtually any type
of boat, whether it’s the large commercial liner, a military ship of some kind or cargo carrier or a sailing yacht? It
would apply equally to all boats of all sizes?
Yeah.
That’s an application for spray foam I would never have thought of.
Some boats have been engineered without it, but some have it engineered with it, and some older boats that might have a
problem where they need more structural integrity or more waterproofing or just want a better ride out there on the water
can use spray foam.

You know, when it comes to a corporation there’s different options. Some will incorporate on their own. Typically, not do everything correctly. They might use like a legal zoom service or use an attorney. I’ll tell you the biggest probably mistake they make they don’t really take into consideration the taxation situation.

You know maybe they read online about type of entity they want to have or maybe talk to an attorney about what they recommend, but they don’t always must they come to us first, they don’t really address taxation issues. And that’s where it can get them into trouble or at least be less favorable for them in the short term. It’s more of a long-term consequence.

Typically, we have a lot of clients that might initially form an entity outside of their State that they live in and operate their business from. They think they can get out of State taxes. And they realize okay, well I actually need to form a foreign entity in my home State. And then they still have to pay all the fees associated with that. A lot of times they want to pay more money as they thought they were going to save money by trying to be sneaky in registering the business out of the State. When they find out in order to be complied they actually have to register their own state. They have Nexus in that State right? That’s one issue we run into a lot of times.

We have a new client who’s a window cleaner. And his accountant who’s I guess no longer around advised him that he set up a Nevada corporation. He lives in California and his business is in California. And the idea was to do that he would save the $800 a year charged by the Franchise Tax Court. The Franchise Tax Board Californian charges and $800 minimum fee. And yeah not everybody’s tax is able to pay that so the thought was ok well you just register Nevada and in California will save you 800. The last eight years, yes that’s been the case but the problem is you know the State doesn’t go by that rule. So it’s just kind of a ticking time bomb. When the State catches up with him you know, they’re going to hit him with $800 a year. Because he was basically operating in California but he wasn’t registered right. So the long term money, 90% chance maybe he’ll get caught and maybe he won’t. But you know, they are trying to track down on more and more. So there’s potential risk there.

The other risk that he has is since he’s not registered as a foreign corporation in California, he doesn’t have a legal protection here. So if somebody falls off a building and sues him, he doesn’t have any corporate liability protection because he’s not registered in California. Totally unaware of that right, so people try to do things on the cheap or you know, they try to kind of a black hat of accounting right. If there’s any problem, it will catch up with them eventually. So a lot of the stuff does not happened right away or let’s say there’s a lawsuit right, so you might be operating for 20 years and never is there a problem, but once you get a lawsuit, that’s when all these things can come to the surface. Or if someone gets audited right. Again maybe, you know, 5 years is fine, nothing’s happen but also they audited and then they get reigned. So you know that’s the potential risk there.

Colleen McNamee, a divorce mediator from McNamee Mediations, is interviewed by Dino from Money Matters. They talked about the top 10 causes for divorce, and Colleen explains each one of them. This is a transcript of Colleen talking about the first among the 10 most common reasons why people file for divorce.

The Top 10 Causes for Divorce

Alright Colleen,
I did a little research, and I found the top 10 causes for divorce. So I’m going to do a little countdown for you, and if you could just address each and every one of them for us.

Reason 1: Marrying for Money

So reason number 1: getting in for the wrong reasons.
Right. So what this means is marrying for money. And when people hear that, they think sugar daddy or sugar momma. And this is not what that actually means. What this means is that there are already problems before you get married or right at the beginning of the marriage. And how often have you heard a friend of yours say, “I’m not sure if this is the right thing, but we’ve spent so much money on the wedding planning. We’ve already sent our invitations out.” Or how often have you heard someone say, “We’ve just done this huge expense like building a home together. I can’t pull out now even thought this doesn’t feel right.” People feel that they’re obligated to follow through this marital commitment because of the money and time that’s been spent.

Colleen McNamee is interviewd by Dino of Money Matters to discuss about Financial Infidelity. Colleen owns a divorce mediation business in Orange County, California. This article is a transcipt of the 5th video of Colleen’s interview, which discusses the shocking facts about divorce.

Shocking Facts About Divorce in Orange County, California

Divorce rate in California is how much now?
Well, in 2013 (we told everybody in 2014 that the statistics said 75%), but just based on how busy I am, I would say that we probably are still in that ball park for sure.
So 75%.
Yes. Staggering number.
That’s absolutely insane to me. Are there any statistics that, you know, talk about the financial consequence of a divorce? Is there an average cost or anything like that?
Well, again, I’m hoping we’ll do a future show here on this with the new 2014 statistics. But the average litigated divorce costs a hundred thousand dollars on each side. So a total of 200,000 dollars. And it can take anywhere from a year and a half to 3 years to sometimes longer just depending on the complexity of the case, your attorney’s schedules, the court calendar, and there’s so many variables that are involved that can really drag that out and make it last a long time.
So let’s print that down because I can’t really imagine a divorce on each side costing a hundred thousand dollars just to litigate. There’s got to be more into that equation. Is it also selling of a home or splitting assets? Or is that just the true cost of legal fees?
That’s usually the true cost of legal fees. On there, maybe a forensic accountant involved in that scenario, and that can be expensive. Or a quadro meeting to be done to divide a pension plan. So it’s all divorce related. It does not necessarily mean that all that money’s going in the attorney’s pocket, but it’s related to the conclusion of that divorce.
Wow! I don’t even know how people can afford to get a divorce.
I know.
You would think that with the financial consequences that a divorce carriers, that people would figure out how to stick it out and not get to that level
Or, use mediation as an alternative because it’s much more cost-effective.
Okay. So let’s talk about that for a second. Mediation, as I know it and as you explained earlier, but just a recap, is basically the couple to jointly go to one person and talking about whatever their issues are and try to revolve something. Do they, in mediation, come in with their needs or a list of their wants? Or do they come mostly and say, “Colleen, tell us what we deserve because we can’t decide on our own.”
It’s probably a little bit of a combination of both. Sometimes people will come in and say, “We’ve already talked about X, Y, and Z, and we know what we want to do with that. So we have these outstanding issues that are D, E, and F and we’re going to need your help with that.” And sometimes they’d come in and they have no idea what to discuss, because this is the first time their doing it. And I’ll guide them through the process and they usually do it issue by issue so that it doesn’t get as overwhelming.
And before the show, we talked a little bit about other mediation companies, and you were actually kind of shocked yourself as to how little they do in comparison to what you do. Break that down for us and explain what a good mediator should do for you all.
Okay. Some things that you should look for ideally working with an attorney-mediator, because they can give legal advice. And that’s huge when you’re going through the divorce process. You need to have someone there who can tell you what the law says and explain it to you. So that’s first and foremost that I think people should look for. You want it to be as much as a one-stop shop as possible, so that you are working primarily with your mediator. You’re not also having to go meet with a financial adviser to figure out how to divide a 4O1K or pro-rate a pension. You’re not having to go work with a CPA to figure out whether or not you should be claiming your child on your taxes, or your spouse should. Or who’s going to claim the tax deductions for the home, and things like that. And those are all things that I provide as part of my service. And then I even go so far as to have my notary certification so that we don’t need to bring in a notary at the final signing. And I’m just able to do everything. And it really make things easier for my clients. Those are things that you should look for when you’re looking for a mediator.

Part Five – Business is good for divorce mediators. And divorce mediate is good for people seeking a divorce. Learn several key facts about California divorces that will make you think differently about marriage, divorce and the best way to navigate through these life changing experiences. Colleen McNamee runs a divorce mediation service in Orange County California.

Colleen McNamee of McNamee Mediations has a video of her recently radio interview regarding financial infidelity. The video is posted on the company’s YouTube channel. Small businesses in California can boost their online presence by posting videos about their services on social media sites.

The two most common ways that they end up finding out is when there’s a death, because you know, finances are looked at that point, or obviously, when there’s a divorce.

If there was a hidden account that nobody knew about, how does that pop up? Are there ways that other or hidden accounts all of a sudden pop up after a death certificate has been?

Well, a lot of times banks, especially bank accounts, have beneficiaries named. And so, you know, that could be a way that it could become disclosed.

So, what are the red flags that spouses should be looking for to prevent the problem from spiraling out of control and destroying their marriages.
I would say keeping an eye out for missing documentation, and any type of money that’s missing from the account – that seems weird and might be for an unusual expense that they’re not aware of. And anything that’s misdirected. If you see that they’re getting mail from a different credit card company that you know you don’t have a credit card with. It may not be junk mail. You may assume that’s what it is but it could actually be a statement. So just keep an eye out and be alert.

Another common situation, where maybe some of our listeners can even relate to it, is a situation where one of the parties (let’s just say for this case, it’s the wife) is giving funds to her parents on the side. And maybe they’re struggling financially to make ends meet, and she doesn’t want to tell her husband about it because she either thinks he won’t be supportive or she’s embarrassed to say that her parents are not doing well enough. So she each month slowly gives a little bit of money, a little cash under the table, little things here and there, which end up accumulating over time. And all of a sudden, she finds that they’re living paycheck to paycheck. And this particular case, she actually stopped paying the mortgage payments. The husband had no idea because she was in charge of all the finances. And the way he found out was that he came home from work one day and there was a bank notice on the front door saying that they were in jeopardy of foreclosure.

Wow! You know, the thing about the parents, I’ve actually heard about that quite a few times especially after the recent years where there was a lot of people that were struggling. And we’ve talked about it on the show a lot too. Kids, in this case, are really stuck sometimes in bad situations where they’d have to take care of their elderly parents, and their kids, and themselves. It could be a bad situation to be in especially if you’re not talking to your spouse. And that’s one thing that I would want everybody to hear right now on the takeaway is that, “Talk to your spouse. Sit down. Go over the finances together. Go over your concerns about the future and how you’re going to set things up.” It will alleviate a lot of the stress and I’ll bet you agree that you’ll find that most of the time with a good conversation, you both could be on the same page.
I agree.

Internal Revenue Service (IRS) requires all businesses in California to keep tax records properly. There are various kinds of tax records, and these are categorized according to different time periods. It is important that when tax time comes, you don’t find yourself panicking because your tax records are not in order. Tax records that are disorganized can cause you many losses once you get audited.

In order to protect your business from unnecessary tax problems, here are a few tips on tax record keeping that you should keep in mind.

1. Have Efficient Accounting Software Installed

Many corporate attorneys in Orange County, California would advise that an accounting software system is a good means to keeping tax records well. Although you may still outsource your final tax return to your business accountant, it will be a product of good record keeping, with the help of your accounting software.

2. Business Taxes Should Always be Supported by Proof

Entries you make on your tax return, like income, expenses and deductions, should be backed up by proof. You must be able to prove that you are eligible to claim the deductions. You are able to provide proof if you keep your corporate records in CA properly.

3. Keep Source Documents for Accounting Journals

Source documents for business related expenses are very important. Source documents include receipts, cash register tapes and cancelled checks, and these are what you make your accounting ledger and journal entries from. You also need these documents for tax deductions that you will get at the end of the year. The original copies of these documents should be kept properly, but to ensure that records are safe, make sure you back them up by scanning and saving them on your computer and on a flash drive.

4. How Long Should Tax Records Be Kept?

Basically, you need to keep your corporate tax records as long as they will be needed for administration, or any part of the tax code. The Internal Revenue Tax Code says that 4 years is the minimum length of time to keep employee records. For those who own property, corporate records in Orange County, CA should be kept until the period of limitations expires for the year wherein you dispose of the property for taxable disposition.

More Tips on Corporate Records

There are other corporate records that need to be kept and managed properly. Having a competent corporate lawyer in Orange County, CA assist you in corporate record management is a wise decision. Business lawyers are efficient in record keeping because they know which documents are necessary and which are not. They will also assist you if legal problems arise with regards to your corporate records.

In Orange County, California there are many good corporate attorneys. The best way to find one that you can entrust your corporate records to is through referrals from family and friends, and from other businesses in the area.